Globe Telecom to push through modernisation plan in the Philippines

Having signed a $90 million loan facility from China Banking Corp this week, Globe Telecom announces a five-year network modernisation plan.

Globe Telecom plans to use the $90 million floating rate term loan facility to finance its capital expenditures for 2012.

The company has embarked on a five-year network modernisation and IT programme which it estimates will cost $790 million in total. It claims that this will “boost voice and data capacity in anticipation of the growing demand for broadband and mobile data use”.

“Globe looks at its broadband and data business as key focus areas that will sustain its growth momentum for the year,” Globe said in a statement.

Globe Telecom plans to spend $640 million on the modernisation programme during 2012 and 2013.

The company signed two other major loans in the last months of last year, taking a 5 billion peso floating-rate term loan facility with Rizal Commercial Banking Corp in November, and borrowing another 5 billion peso loan from BDO Unibank in December.

For the period January to September 2011, Globe Telecom posted a net income of 7.99 billion peso, with its earnings showing a rise of 7% year on year.

Globe Telecom provides the Philippines second-largest mobile network, with less than half the subscriber base of Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co (PLDT).

It has been a busy time in the Philippines telecoms market recently. PLDT’s profits showed a 4% drop from 31.99 billion peso in January 2011 to 30.62 billion peso in September last year.

However, PLDT acquired a 51.55% stake in the Philippines mobile telecoms company Digitel for 69.2 billion peso in October 2011, which means that PLDT now owns 98% of the company. Earlier this week, PLDT announced its intention to delist all Digitel shares from the local market.